Bake-a-Byte: Raspberry macarons

Macarons are essentially 2 almond meringues, put together, with filling in between. In this case, the filling is a raspberry butter cream.

They are notoriously difficult to make (and distinguage with macaronis when pronounced). However, I find that the only thing that is really difficult, is to make the perfect macarons. Things like, is the top smooth and shiny, and have they "popped up" are the concerns? The perfect macaron is a lovely thing, both to behold and to eat. However, most of the things that are likely to go wrong when making macarons are cosmetic, ie they will still taste wonderful. So unless you are planning to sell them, I say give it a go!

This is only my second time making macarons, and as you can see from the images below, I don't quite have the estethics down yet, but the taste is still nice, and to my mind, that's the main thing.

Raspberry macarons

Ingredients (about 60 "halves", ie 30 macarons):

Macarons:
4 egg whites
0,5 dl caster sugar
4 dl powdered sugar
150g peeled almonds
red food coloring (optional)

Ingredients for the macaron cookies

Raspberry butter cream:
150g room temperature butter
2,25 dl powdered sugar
1,5 tsp. vanilla sugar
1 egg yoke
A couple of handfuls of raspberries

Ingredients for the raspberry butter cream

Start by making the macarons.

The first thing to do is to peel and grate the almonds (unless you feel lazy and buy ones that are already peeled). Blanch the almonds in boiling water for about 2 minutes to loosen the peel, then strain and peel (the skin should pop right off). Allow them to dry for at least a couple of hours. Once they are dry, grate the peeled almonds. I had some trouble here, and the grated almonds were a little coarser that they should have been, which led to my macarons not coming out as smooth and shine as I would have liked. Ideally, they should be fine enough to pass through a sieve, so depending on how fine you get them, it might be a good idea to whack them in the food processor for a while to get them really fine.

Whisk the egg whites to a medium peak, meaning the egg whites should be firm, but not quite all the way to as firm as it can be. Add the sugar, a little at a time, while continuing to whisk. Keep whisking for another couple of minutes, until the meringue is stiff and shiny.

Add the food coloring, sieve the powdered sugar and almonds into the meringue, and gently fold it in with a flexible spatula. Keep folding the mixture until the ingredients are mixed through and the consistency is right, it should still be quite firm, but just starting to get a little bit runny.

Pipe the mixture onto an oven tray covered with parchment paper, in round "blobs", about 4cm in diameter. Give the tray a couple of good bangs aginst the table, this should smooth them out a little and get rid of the "peak". Then allow them to rest for at least 30 minutes (60 is even better). This lets a coating form on top of the cookies, which keeps them from cracking in the oven, and (hopefully) gives you that ring on the bottom that means that they have "popped up".

Bake at 150°C, in the bottom of the oven, for 20-25 minutes. When you take them out, immediately remove the sheet of parchment paper with the cookies from the tray, and allow to cool.

While the cookies are baking, we can make our raspberry butter cream.

Place the raspberries in a pot and mush them up, then bring to the boil while stirring (I'm using frozen raspberries, but of course you can use fresh ones if you want). Strain the raspberry coolie to get rid of the seeds.

Whisk the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla sugar until white and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and the raspberry coolie (I like quite a lot of raspberry taste, so I used 4-5 tbsp. but basically, add to taste) and mix. Store in the fridge until it's time to assemble the macarons.

To assemble, pipe some butter cream on a cookie, and place another on top.